Watchmen: comics vs. movies

By now, we’ve all read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ masterpiece Watchmen. We all know how great it is, and even mainstream culture agrees with us. I’ve seen it used as a textbook in college courses, and there’s a plethora of literary criticism examining and deconstructing every facet of the story. Obviously, you don’t need yet another blog by yet another comic book nerd extolling the greatness that is Watchmen.

That being said, I’d like to talk about the two adaptations of Watchmen to the medium of film. That’s right, I said two. Most of us are familiar with the 2009 Zack Snyder-directed Watchmen movie, but did you know there was also a “motion comic” released nearly a year before the live action film? I didn’t. I have no idea how I completely missed out on the motion comic, especially considering I was getting back into the comic book scene at the time. As the old adage goes, “better late than never.”

I stumbled across the Watchmen motion comic on YouTube accidentally. I noticed there are quite a few unauthorized editions floating around in low resolution, though the entire 12-part series is available in high definition on an official Warner Bros. YouTube channel. I bookmarked the playlist and watched it whenever I had time. However, after a few chapters I realized I wasn’t giving this series the proper attention it deserves and ordered the Blu-ray from Amazon. It arrived a few days later and I watched it on my big screen HDTV at night in the dark.

Let’s just say it looks so much better this way.

Watchmen: The Motion Comic is exactly what it claims to be. It is not an animated film based on the book, it is literally the comic taken panel-by-panel with some animation effects added to give it a sense of motion. It even retains the word balloons. All the characters are voiced by Tom Stechschulte (including the women). He’s a good voiceover artist, especially for the characters of Rorshach, Dr. Manhattan and Malcolm Long. Why he also voiced the female characters I do not understand. At times it feels like watching and episode of “South Park” where Trey Parker voices 99% of the characters.

Visually, it appears to be nearly identical to Gibbons’ original line art and John Higgins’ colors. In fact, Gibbons and Higgins’ names are the only two creators credited in the opening sequence of each episode (Alan Moore is uncredited, not surprisingly).

As great as high definition makes TV, movies, and sports look; it makes animation look even better. The brilliant resolution makes the line work sharp and crisp, which also enables small details and backgrounds to become part of the story and not just background clutter. Anyone who’s read the Watchmen comic knows it is loaded with intricate details, so their re-creation here gives the “motion comic” nearly the same weight as the original graphic novel.

At nearly five and a half hours, Watchmen: The Motion Comic is as close as you’ll come to “watching” the comic as possible. However, it is not a 100% verbatim adaptation as a few scenes and lines are omitted here and there. Only hardcore purists are likely to notice their absence, though.

As for the live action Watchmen movie, it seems to be a controversial work among the comic book community. Everyone seems to either love it or hate it. While it does a good job of staying true to the source material with most of the major plot points kept intact, it’s a perfect example of why film and comics are completely different mediums. In my opinion, it’s only an “okay” movie at best.

When it comes to adapting comic books into movies, there seems to be two major camps on why it’s a good or bad thing. The “Kevin Smith Camp” as I like to call it, seems to believe that as long as a movie is true to its source material it’s a good thing and works as a movie. This camp also seems to believe that if a comic book movie is great then the average person will think the comics are just as entertaining and start buying them and making them readers for life. The opposite viewpoint, or the “Alan Moore Camp”, sees movie adaptations as a bastardization of the original artwork, no matter how “good” the movie is.

I actually agree with Alan Moore that people in the Kevin Smith Camp are simply viewing comics as movies without motion or sound. I’d go even further and say their reasoning is a form of inferiority complex. Why isn’t it good enough to have a great comic? Why does it need to be made into a movie for it to be legitimate art? Also, seeing tights & fights in the context of a comic book is perfectly acceptable, but seeing it on the big screen with real people wearing costumes makes the very premise of superheroes implausible, ridiculous, and comical. The opening sequence of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie exemplifies this perfectly.

Speaking of which, what was up with that opening? Using a montage to establish several decades of back story in a few minutes is understandable, but the approach Snyder takes is dark and disturbing. It’s simultaneously the best and worst thing in the movie. “Best” because it’s quite artistic and creative and elicits an emotional response; but “worst” because it just doesn’t fit the tone of the movie and adds nothing to the story.

There are a lot of things to both praise and criticize the Watchmen movie for, but there are already a ton of reviews that have already done that years ago. It’s rather futile to re-hash them now. I was inspired to write this blog since I just watched both the motion comic and the movie in the last few days and I thought it would be fun to generate discussion about them.

What did you think about either of these works? Did you enjoy one more than the other? Neither? Both?

Do you feel either represents the original comic book well?

Do the graphic novel, the movie, and the motion comic each work well in their own way or is one superior to the other?

When it comes to comic book movies and their artistic worth (or lack thereof), do you identify more with Kevin Smith or Alan Moore camps?

Do you know anyone that saw the Watchmen movie and then read the comic – what was their reaction to each?

4 Responses

I can’t invest the time in the motion comic right now…so I’ll limit my response to the movie and comic book issues – which is how I read it, issue by issue, not in an anthology.

1) I read the original series issue by issue as it was released during the 1980s when I was in college. The. Wait. Was. Maddening. Books and movies are different media, and I enjoyed both equally, though obviously the books are much more detailed and layered and complex.

2) I think the movie captures the essential spirit and basic themes of the comic books.

3) Superior is a relative word. Some people will never get into comic books/graphic novels period. For whatever reason. It’s hard to compare one medium to another since each has limitations, but I think the comic book issues and movie each captured the essential spirit of the comic books/graphic novel.

4) I prefer Kevin Smith when it comes to comic book movies. I love Alan Moore, but I don’t think he really understands the moving visual medium at all and has a basic hostility to it.

However, as I stated in a previous column, I find the most crucial plot point of the entire storyline, the Comedian’s crying fit in front of Moloch after discovering Ozy’s giant psychic mutant octopus totally unbelievable. In fact, I found the giant psychic mutant octopus more believable. Having the Comedian break down and cry like a baby is total BS and completely out of character for him. He didn’t notify the military or the government and instead went home to watch TV and drink a beer. The Comedian hated Ozy, and I find it hard to believe he would have simply wanted away from what he discovered – and then go running to Moloch of all people!

All the Comedian had to do was call in an air strike against the island where he found the psychic mutant octopus and problem solved. This is one point I don’t believe Alan Moore thought through very well.

As much as I loved the comic version, which I have in multiple forms and have read several times, I enjoyed the movie a great deal, as it stayed faithful to the important storyline. The graphic version included a lot of side details that added to its depth, such as the text pieces and the multiple plot lines all centered around the newsstand, but it’s impossible to include all of that in a film and I don’t mind that they were discarded.

My one comment that will draw a GASP from hardcore lovers of the series, I think Zack Snyder’s ending was better than Moore’s. The octopus always seemed a far-fetched idea, just appearing out of nowhere, never having been a presence in the story other than the sidebar story of its creation. To the surviving world authorities, it was a new mystery to be solved, along with the disappearance of hundreds of the world’s leading scientists and artists.

Ridding the world of Dr. Manhattan was one of Adrian’s goals and Snyder’s method was far more effective. Doc was already a known quantity and making him the stooge simultaneously served all of Veidt’s purposes – the slaughter designed to bring the world together, using a radiation with which the world’s scientists were already familiar, thus negating the incentive to look further for for a hidden cause (and agenda), and getting rid of the Doctor (and his big blue manhood).

I also own the Motion Comic and it’s enjoyable, as it includes all of the side stories (not the text pieces) and can be watched in installments. For the seriously hardcore fan, here’s another tie in that I also own and have watched and enjoyed.

I agree about the ending… up to a point. The space monster makes the island sub-plot and the Comedian’s discovery of it and his subsequent decent in depression valid (though, as Jango Davis pointed out – why didn’t he do anything about it?). Using Dr. Manhattan as a scapegoat is a bit more realistic – especially having it happen around the world simultaneously.

However, I think that particular plot device would only escalate things as every country would blame every other country for the catastrophe. Or, all the other countries would’ve blamed the USA since Dr. Manhattan was clearly working for the American government all along and WWIII would’ve indeed broken out. That would’ve been really ironic, eh?

There really is no way to end Watchmen with some kind of event that would bring a worldwide cease-fire, not in any plausible way, that is. Take what we can get I suppose.

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